Note on the Statistics of Nuclei

Abstract

From Pauli's exclusion principle we derive the rule for the symmetry of the wave functions in the coordinates of the center of gravity of two similar stable clusters of electrons and protons, and justify the assumption that the clusters satisfy the Einstein-Bose or Fermi-Dirac statistics according to whether the number of particles in each cluster is even or odd. The rule is shown to become invalid only when the interaction between the clusters is large enough to disturb their internal motion.